


Fishy Business

by Woad



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon)
Genre: Advanced Idea Mechanics, Atlanteans, Atlantis, Avengers Family, G-Rated Body Horror, M/M, Mad Science, Protective Steve Rogers, Thor and Hulk Fight Like Siblings, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Transformation, an attempt at humor was made
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 07:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10939710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woad/pseuds/Woad
Summary: A perfectly nice beach vacation is interrupted when an AIM science experiment leaves Tony with gills. Which might be cool under certain circumstances, except for the other side-effect: Tony's unable to breathe air anymore. The team learns that Atlantis may be able to help, so together they go in search for a cure.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DragonK](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonK/gifts).
  * Inspired by [RBB 2017: Fishy Art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10946559) by [DragonK](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonK/pseuds/DragonK). 



> The accompanying fic to DragonK's wonderful RBB art. Go click on it for bigger, prettier pictures. :) There's also a [tumblr page for the art here.](http://dksartz.tumblr.com/post/160825487078/this-is-my-art-for-team-fortune-for-this-years)
> 
> This also owes a substantial bit of nodding to [Love Among the Hydrothermal Vents by Devil Doll](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045195).

The sun was bright and warm, and the sounds of waves crashing on the shore was the perfect white noise for a bit of reading. In the mottled shade of a palm tree, Tony was reclining in a lounge chair, a glass of iced tea within easy reach to his right, the Rubber Ducky suit of armor on the left.

“You sure you don’t want to come with us, Tony?”

Tony looked up from his dog-eared copy of _The Martian Chronicles,_ and was suddenly very, very thankful for dark sunglasses. They meant nobody could see the way his eyes had just widened, drinking in the view of Steve, barechested and clad in bright, Hawaiian print board shorts. Steve and Clint were carrying surf boards, about to head out for another day in the waves. Today, however, they had apparently decided that the water was warm enough to leave their wetsuits back in the bungalow.

Did it count as ogling if it was his boyfriend?

“I’m good,” Tony squeaked.

“You didn’t want to go snorkeling with Sam and Nat either.” Clint bent down and swiped Tony’s iced tea. “If you wanted to sit in a chair and read, you could have done that at home. C’mon Tony, what is it? Did you forget to bring a swimsuit?"

Tony hadn’t set foot in the ocean willingly ever since the ordeal with Neptune’s Trident. He and Steve had only narrowly escaped a huge vortex, and sometimes Tony still woke up at night gasping for breath, the sensation of being sucked down beneath the waves lingering long after the nightmare had faded.

It was strange. No other mission had wormed beneath his skin like that. One theory Tony had developed was that the nightmares had a link to the magic of the broken trident. He’d asked Steve once if he had the same sort of dreams. Steve had looked at him, politely puzzled, and said no.

Tony flashed Clint a smile that was too toothy to be wholly sincere, and held up his identicard. “I’m also monitoring threats.”

“Isn’t that why the Fantastic Four are housesitting at the tower?” Clint raised one eyebrow and eyed the suit of armor. “Steve,” he said, in mock whisper, “I’m beginning to think the great Tony Stark can’t swim.”

“I’ve completed five triathlons, thank you very much,” Tony sniffed.

Ever the intermediary, Steve tried to make the teasing a moot point. “If Tony’s happier sunbathing, that’s his call, Clint. There are plenty of ways to enjoy the beach.” Even so, Tony didn’t miss the stress Steve put on _if,_ like he doubted that that was the whole story.

Tony sensed a heart-to-heart coming later from Mr. Greatest Generation about _fear and fear itself._

“Oh c’mon, Cap! It’s not sunbathing if he’s not even wearing shorts!”

“HEY!”

All three men winced at the Hulk’s shout. Down the beach they could see him kneeling in the sand. His ire seemed to stem from that fact that Thor was standing on a large pile of sand.

“YOU STEPPED ON HULK’S CASTLE!”

“Friend Hulk, you called that mound a _castle?_ I will show you how to build a sand kingdom to rival Asgard, fit for Odin himself.”

“NO! YOU WANT TO DECORATE EVERYTHING WITH STUPID SEASHELLS!”

“On second thought,” Clint said, shaking his head, “maybe it’s better if someone stays on the beach to supervise.”

In a gratifying twist, Tony’s Identicard went off just as Clint and Steve were shouldering their surfboards to head down to the water.

“Hope your costumes are clean, boys,” Tony grinned, climbing into the armor. “That’s Sue. She says an AIM sighting just came in, and they’re only a few miles from here.”

#

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Clint grumbled as he let a net arrow fly, taking down three yellow rubber suits in one go. “We’re on _vacation._ Does that mean nothing to you people?”

“Crime never takes a holiday, Hawkeye,” Steve said, blocking some sort of acid projectile. The beekeepers above had to reload cumbersome fluorescent green cartridges into their guns, and their divided attention was enough of an opening for Natasha to take them down from behind.

“This would be a lot easier if I could use my Bite,” she grumped, long red hair tied back, still damp with salt water.

“Is that another vote for Team Dry Land?” Tony asked, voice sing-song light as he rocketed past overhead, a beekeeper dangling by one leg in his grasp. He deposited the squirming flunky in a large, crusty tank that looked like it had been drained and fallen into disuse long ago--hard to tell if that would have been before or after AIM started squatting in the warehouse. It looked like the beekeeper infestation had been going for some time now.

“If it is, I think that automatically puts Thor on your side too,” she replied.

A large machine with grasping claws crashed through one of the warehouse doors, and Tony had to bank hard left to avoid one of its shiny pincers.

“I do not understand the quarrel,” Thor said, hurling Mjolnir at the robot. It smashed through the metal above the right claw and came hurling back to his hand through cloud of oily smoke. “Why must there be sides?”

“Because some people think their idea of vacation is better than others.” Tony rocketed into two yellow suits who were taking aim at him with yet another strange weapon, a poorly designed bazooka number. Thank goodness AIM only attracted the most incompetent of weapons designers.

Tony knocked the two beekeepers through one of the flimsy particleboard walls in a rain of brittle plaster and wood splinters. The abrupt crash landing left him dizzy, but otherwise unhurt-- _thank you, yellow rubber_. The beekeepers, by contrast, were left in a groaning heap on the floor.

The room that Tony found himself in was distinctly different from the rest of the warehouse. Where the majority of the wharf was comprised of burnt-out buildings housing the scattered bones of a canning operation, this room smelled of salt, and hummed with water pumps.

Curious, Tony peered into tanks as he walked among them. The first he approached housed a cloud of silver minnows, and the one next to it held fat, striped bass that turned lazily, sidling up to the side of the glass and turning yellow, curious eyes on Tony. Clear tubing had been assembled above the tanks, creating a drip line that oozed something viscous and brown into the water, and there were paper logs hung on the glass of each enclosure, carefully charting weights by day. Tony really hoped that whatever AIM was piping in for the fish, that it was food. He didn’t want to imagine what else it might be.

Further in among the rows of tanks, Tony turned and recoiled. A large length of glass ran across the back wall, big enough to house a mixed aquarium. Inside this one, a large humanoid--like a blue version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon--floated listlessly. It had been quite some time since Tony had last seen an Atlantean, but there was no mistaking the thing for anything but that.

Nasty scratches gouged the length glass, and Tony saw a thick padlock the size of his fist keeping a grate above the aquarium firmly in place. After the incident with the trident and the attempt to flood New York, Tony had no love for Attuma or his henchmen. But keeping an Atlantean imprisoned like this was just barbaric.

“Hello?” Tony tapped on the glass, trying to get its attention.

The Atlantean opened it’s eyes and looked up at Tony, and a cloud of bubbles escaped its mouth in surprise. It cringed and held up its hands defensively, as though it expected Tony to hurt it.

Inside the armor, Tony frowned. Then he realized the armor might be the problem. If the Atlantean had never seen something like the armor before, it might think _he_ was the one who looked as strange as a B-grade movie monster. Tony flipped up the faceplate and waved, hoping the gesture was universally friendly. “Hi! I’m Tony. I’m here to help.”

He had no idea if it could hear him or if it spoke English. But maybe it could read lips. Couldn’t hurt to try, he figured.

The Atlantean lowered its arms, and its silver eyes softened. Tony relaxed a bit too, now that it seemed to understand that he wasn’t here to hurt it.

He switched on his comm. “Guys, I think I’ve found a hostage.”

“Where are you?” Sam asked.

“Back of the warehouse. Look for a big hole in the wall.” He shifted his attention back to the trapped Atlantean. “I’m going to blast the lock,” Tony said, pointing at the offending bit of metal.  Silver eyes followed his finger. It nodded.

“It’ll make a loud noise,” Tony warned it, and readied his repulsor.

But before he could, the Atlantean opened its mouth wide, letting loose another stream of bubbles. This close to the glass, Tony could hear the muffled scream through the water, right as something crashed into the back of his head.

The brown ichor that he’d seen earlier splattered across the glass like a spray of blood. Tony wheeled around, bringing a gauntlet up to block the next blow.

He succeeded. But the beekeeper had thrown another beaker of the weird substance at him, and the glass broke on the titanium-gold alloy of the armor. Bits of glass stung his cheeks--or maybe that was the brown substance? He was fortunate that no shards got into his mouth or eyes, but the ichor did. Tony choked on it--would have gagged from the smell alone--and tried to aim his repulsors at the scientist. His vision was blurring though, and he couldn’t catch his breath--

He was at point-blank range though. Tony fired a repulsor, blasting the beekeeper went tumbling backwards.

Ordinarily, Tony would breathe a sigh of relief.

It still felt like he was choking though. If he could only throw up. But it felt like there were hands on his throat, strangling him, and the armor seemed to be constricting around him. Tony set the command to release him from the armor, but as he tumbled out onto hands and knees, he still felt violently ill.

“Iron Man?” He heard Sam call out, not far away. The youngest Avenger touched down beside him and immediately put a hand on Tony’s hunched back. He’d had to stabilize Tony before when the arc reactor wasn’t working--he knew the warning signs all too well.

More footsteps followed at a run, then Steve’s voice. “What’s wrong? What happened to him?”

“I don’t know...something with the arc reactor maybe.”

Everything felt too warm, like Tony had a fever. Definitely not the arc reactor. Tony gasped and clutched at his throat, pointing to the ichor on the glass.

Sam frowned, then pried Tony’s fingers away from his neck. “Are those what I think they are?”

“What in the world…”

“Your friend is in trouble.” The voice was soft but insistent. The Atlantean had swum to the surface of the tank. “They dosed him with a serum they were developing. Give him to me.”

Steve’s mouth thinned. They had few choices in the interim for dealing with the situation, though. A hard bash with his vibranium shield made short work of the lock. The Atlantean pushed the grate aside, and between the three of them, they hoisted Tony up and over, feet first into the salt water.

As his waist hit the water, Tony struggled. The feeling from his nightmares of being sucked down into the water hit him full force, and his heart started racing. “No--” he gasped.

“Tony,” Steve said, sliding in with him, one hand on the edge of the tank, the other on Tony’s shoulder, urging him down. “Tony you have _gills_.”

_What?_ Tony’s mind did somersaults. How was that possible? _Oh no, did that mean..._

“You must breathe as you would, but under water. Our tadpoles have the same trouble.” the Atlantean said, confirming his worst fears. “You cannot get enough oxygen from the air.”

“I’m here for you, Tony,” Steve said softly--too softly for Sam to hear-- and wrapped an arm around Tony’s waist. “I won’t let you drown, I promise.”

Tony’s vision was graying around the edges. If they didn’t do something quickly, he was going to suffocate.

If there was anyone that Tony trusted to get him through a bad situation, though, it was Steve. He slide the rest of the way into the water, let Steve’s arms come up under his arms and support him. Then Steve took a large gasp of air, and then sank them both beneath the surface.

Opening his mouth and sucking down a lungful of water was the hardest thing Tony had ever done. It violated the greatest instincts the human body had. Eventually, though, the compulsion to breath won out over the fear of drowning.

Eyes squeezed tightly shut, and fingers digging into Steve’s shoulders, Tony took a breath. Water flowed in and down his throat, heavy and unpleasant. It exited through the new gills on his neck, ruffling the folds of skin there. It was strange and wrong, but it did rid him of the gray spots around his vision.

Tony looked up into Steve’s face and gave him a wavering smile. He was absurdly lucky to have someone like Steve who understood so much, but never rubbed it in--at least not the important things. He might still be fighting tooth and nail and rapidly running out of oxygen, if not for his big-hearted boyfriend.

Steve smiled back, gave Tony a hug, and after Tony fought back the instinct to hold tight to him, Steve carefully let go, and kicked his way back up to the surface. Tony followed, careful to keep his nose and mouth beneath the water. By tilting his head slightly, he was able to keep one ear out of the water to hear.

While Steve had been coaching him through breathing, the rest of the team had arrived, having cleaned up the rest of the warehouse of its AIM infestation. Meanwhile, Sam had started gathering goo samples. His nose was screwed up in disgust, and having experienced the smell close up, Tony couldn’t blame him.

“We should take him to Atlantis,” the Atlantean suggested. “The King will know what to do.”

Steve balked at the idea. “To Attuma? Why would he help us?”

The Atlantean cocked his head. “Attuma? The Renegade Warlord? He is not the King.”

“Well if fin-face isn’t, who is?” Clint demanded.

The Atlantean cocked its head at the derogatory nickname. “His Highness is called Namor. He is part _homo mermanus,_ part human. If your friend has been hybridized, no one will be better suited to help him than the King.”

#

“How are you feeling?” Sam asked, taking a seat next to Tony in the back of the AIM submersible that the Avengers had commandeered.

How was he feeling? He was trying not to hyperventilate, or cause a scene. Rationally, he knew that he could breathe underwater now, but that still didn’t do anything to ease the feeling of dread as they descended into the deep.

Tony grimaced, and scribbled on a pad of paper, _Like maybe I should have stayed on the beach and let the rest of you search the warehouse._ He thought wistfully of his chair in the sun. _Any luck?_

“Not yet. It’s a pretty complicated serum and physiology was never my strong suit. Sorry Tony.”

_I know you’re doing your best._

That wasn’t an exaggeration. Sam had already done a ton. He’d been able to jury-rig one of the AIM diving suits into what amounted to a portable fish bowl that would let Tony breathe--an apparatus that fit over his nose, mouth, and upper neck. The catch was that he had to be hooked up to a tank of water, much like a diver needed a tank of air. And he could only talk by removing the facemask, which interrupted his breathing. It was tricky business talking, which was probably the worst part. Snarky replies lost a little something when they had to be handwritten.

The Atlantean, who had asked to be called Balen, said it was ordinary for their tadpoles to struggle in the air. The amphibious nature of the lungs developed over time, and Balen was not sure how the serum that Tony had been exposed to would change him. He suggested that it might mimic an Atlantean’s development.

Tony had privately been horrified at the thought of changing any further into something that wasn’t human. Rather than risk offending their new friend, however, he kept that to himself.

Sam patted Tony on the back. “I know this is a lot less fun than sitting on a beach, but we might not have found Balen if you hadn’t been with us Tony.”

_I know._

It didn’t change the fact that this was awful, but Sam was right. The Atlantean had been incredibly grateful to them for finding him.

“It was so lonely,” he’d told them. “For a long time, my only companion was a Giant Sturgeon. I was so sad when they took her away.”

“Why? It’s just a fish,” Clint said. “She probably made lots of sushi lovers happy.”

“She was no bigger than a cubit--” Balen’s disgust was plain.

“That doesn’t sound gigantic.”

“She was just a baby. And far too valuable to be turned into sushi.” His face contorted in disgust. “I’d hoped to return her to the Royal family. No doubt there’s a reward. The King is the only person in all of Atlantis with breeding pairs, so they’re quite rare. If you helped me find her--”

“First we see to Tony,” Steve had put his foot down. “Then we can look for pet fish.”

Clint sniggered. “Pet fish. On the surface we keep _cute_ pets. Ever seen a corgi?” he asked the Atlantean.

“Clint, you’re dangerously close to getting fish search and rescue duty.”

“But--”

Steve adopted his patent disapproving face, which shut Clint up.

And that was how how they’d all wound up on the sub, making their way to Atlantis.

#

“Have there been any further changes?” Steve asked as they left the sub and Balen conversed in a rapid, high pitched language with fellow Atlanteans dressed in golden armor. It made Tony itch for his own.

Tony shook his head, watching as Steve pulled on a diving suit. Next he helped Tony into the straps of a portable water tank. Balen had warned them that the castle was a sometimes unpredictable mixture of water and air. The Avengers had been puzzled by this; Balen had shrugged and said they would see for themselves. He also assured Tony that it would be easy to accommodate his need for water. They could easily find a suite of family rooms with mixed environments--all wealthy homes had them.

“I’m not sure if that’s good or bad,” Steve finally confessed. Tentatively, he added, “Does it hurt at all?” His face was so open, so concerned, and he stroked the side of Tony’s cheek tenderly.

Tony promptly revised his list of reasons that this situation was awful. He would have given anything to just lean over and kiss Steve.

Tony pulled out his pad of paper, _No, it’s just frustrating._

Steve scanned the note, and seemed relieved. “I’m glad. For me it…” he trailed off then shook his head as the guards, satisfied that they were not an invading foreign force, waved them through. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Tony wanted to press him on that. To Tony, it sounded an awful lot like when he’d asked if Steve had nightmares. But they were on the move, and Tony didn’t want to draw attention by fumbling with his pencil and paper as they were shepherded through the palace.

 _Later,_ Tony resolved.

Namor’s castle beneath the waves was made of smooth, pale green stone that glittered in the sunlight. The walls of the main hall were carved into great sloping cliffs--as though the palace were a collection of waves frozen in stone. Here and there the architect had inset stripes of polished green and blue seaglass to catch the shimmering light that filtered down from the vaulted glass ceilings. Many of the outer walls also had floor to glass windows that gave them spectacular views of Atlantis. The underwater city sprawled out before the castle as far as the eye could see.

“This palace was shaped using the old knowledge by the councelors centuries ago,” he explained. “Short of becoming a warlord, a counselor to the King is the most powerful position an Atlantean can rise to, and one of the highest of honors. You surfacers already know one of the greatest: Myraddin, though he went by Merlin among you.”

 _Magic,_ Tony realized. Well, that explained the underwater air pockets.

As they were led through the cavernous halls of the palace, Tony spied the curious mixture of rooms. Many of the common areas, like the halls they walked in now, were dry. But several side chambers led to stairs that descended down into crystal blue waters.

Namor’s throne room was another dry area: a large room, sporting more of the glass ceiling motif from wall to wall. As the Avengers were lead in, Tony gaped as he looked upward at a whale swimming lazily by overhead.

“Surface dwellers? Why have you brought air-breathers into my presence?” Namor asked of the guard waspishly, reclining on a gold and pink throne with carvings that made it look like the spiral of a conche.  

He was a lithe man, tall and sharp-faced, with jet-black hair and curiously pink skin. Tony had never seen an Atlantean who was anything other than blue or green, like the handful of advisors flanking the throne, as well as the guards.

“Sire,” said one of the guards, “The air-breathers have returned one of the palace staff--the one who went missing.”

One of Namor’s thin, pointed eyebrows rose. “Where do they say he was found?”

“On the surface, Sire.”

Namor tapped at his pale lower lip with a slender finger. “Is this true, Balen?”

Their Atlantean friend’s silver eyes grew big at being directly addressed by his king. “Yes, Your Majesty. I was going home for the night when a bag was thrown over my head. By the time they took it off, the yellow monsters had already taken me to the surface. These air-breathers freed me.”

“But why did you bring them here?”

Balen gestured his long arms at Tony. “During the rescue, one of the monsters changed this one. He has grown gills, like us. But like a tadpole, he founders in air. I suggested that we seek your wisdom on the matter.”

Namor regarded Tony with a cool and inscrutable expression for several moments. “What am I to do? He is not broken. Gills are a gift that the surface world was never worthy of.”

“I--” Balen stuttered, not sure what to say next. “Yes, Sire, but--”

That was when Steve butted in. “Your highness, no one said there was anything wrong with gills. But Tony’s our teammate. We need him. And we won’t rest as long as this condition keeps him from living on the surface.”

Tony’s heart fluttered a little at that.

Namor, on the other hand, literally sat up and took notice of Steve. “And who are you? The leader of this motley gang?”

Steve glanced at the other assembled heroes. “Well, I wouldn’t say motley. Steve Rogers, sir.”

“Steve Rogers…” The King of Atlantis abruptly shifted from the barest of tolerance for their group, to intrigued. “Rakaa,” he called, and a wrinkled old Atlantean in billowing white robes startled as her name was called. “Give me your counsel.”

Rakaa’s milky white eyes narrowed as she looked at Tony. “I think we should cure him and be rid of the air-breathers as quickly as possible, my Lord.”

Namor’s eyes slid to the other side of the hall to the other white-robed counselor. “Gellis?”

This Atlantean, a round and bulbous male cleared his throat. “This good deed only cancels the wrong the other air-breathers inflicted against our kingdom. Why should we help? Have them escorted to the surface without any aid.”

Namor smirked at the suggestion and stroked his chin.

After a bit of rumination, Namor stood. However, instead of pronouncing judgement, he gestured for the Avengers to follow him into an antechamber lined with shelves and cupboards.

Once the door was firmly shut, he turned and addressed Steve. “There’s wisdom in both my counselor's advice. So I shall take both. I will do what I can for your friend, Steve Rogers. But you must help me first. The yellow men could not have orchestrated a kidnapping in Atlantis without help. Find me the traitor that colluded with them, and you will have all the knowledge Atlantis has to offer. Fail, and your friend will have to find his own solution.”

Steve looked less than pleased. But, short of a breakthrough from Sam, Tony knew they didn’t have much of a choice.

“Deal.”

“Excellent,” Namor said. “One small matter that may aid in your work.” He opened one of the drawers and pulled a tattered scrap of white cloth from it.

Steve took it from him, examining the rips. It had once had swirls of gold embroidered into the hem, but most of the stitches had been pulled out, leaving only frayed bits of the shimmering thread.

“This was found at the site Balen last remembers.”

“Is it significant?”

“The fabric is from a councelor's robe, you can tell by the gold trim,” Namor explained. “The two you met today are the only ones regularly at the palace. And you so see, I have reason to believe that one of them is misleading me. I look forward to what you find.”

It was a dismissal, but before the Avengers could leave, Namor caught Steve by the shoulder, something almost predatory in his gaze. “I wish to have further words with you, as one leader to another. Meet me here tomorrow.”

It wasn’t a request, and Tony bristled at the ego.

Well, he certainly didn’t envy Steve his role in all of this. It seemed there were worse things in the world than having gills after all.

#

Despite his cold and aloof attitude toward them, the quarters that Namor gave the group to use was a spacious and luxurious suite of rooms branching off of a common area. Perhaps there were no other sort in the castle, Tony mused, short of dungeons. Did sea castles have dungeons, he wondered? He would have to find out before they left.

Each of the Avengers had their own room, and the split-level architecture of their common area meant that there was a submerged half that Tony could use without being sequestered from the others. _So that mothers can keep an eye on their tadpoles,_ Balen had explained the design. Which instantly made Tony less enthusiastic about the set up.

He pulled off the breathing apparatus and sank down into the warm water, letting it rise up around him but keeping an ear on the surface. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that he was relaxing in a lukewarm jacuzzi at Avengers tower.

Almost.

The constant spill of water down his throat was a an ever present reminder that he was deep in the heart of the ocean. There was also the lack of the all-too familiar sounds of Thor, Hulk, and Clint shouting at each other over video games. Instead they were arguing about who got the room with the biggest bed.

“Thor should take the room with the seashells.” Hulk was very adamant about this.

Thor snorted derisively. “Perhaps you would appreciate their beauty more if you stayed in the room. You have a propensity for delicate things, as I recall.”

“Double bed is too small for Hulk! Hulk needs to stretch out to fall asleep.”

Tony heard Steve’s long suffering voice, breaking up their argument so that they could turn to the serious matters at hand. “ _I’ll_ take the seashell bedroom. Balen, can you show us where you were kidnapped tomorrow morning?”

“If you wish. I am afraid that the task the King has set will not be easy.”

“It’ll be somewhere to start.”

“In the meantime, what exactly is there to do for fun around here?” Clint asked.

Tony tuned the rest of the conversation out. Steve’s optimism was nice, but Tony found himself fixated on the _what if_ s. What if Namor’s task was impossible? They were, after all, dealing with important people that had magic power. Surely the counselors would have lots of tools to cover their tracks. And what if Namor didn’t keep his word to help Tony? What if the other Avengers were sent away and Tony was trapped here--or exiled to fend for himself?

Tony thought about being cast out into the vast reaches of the ocean and panic began to grip him.

He’d never be able to fend for himself. And without a suit like the Rubber Ducky, he’d never be able to find his way home again.

Tony’s heartbeat became uncomfortable in his chest, a heavy thudding, and if his body hadn’t been submerged in water, he probably would have had the sweats. Then it got worse. A numbness swept over his fingers, followed by a wave of pins and needles.

Tony looked at one hand and gasped.

He had webbing between his fingers--honest to god, translucent mud-gray webbing. “S-sam!” he stammered and burbled around the water in his mouth. Next thing he knew, Sam and Steve were wading into the waist high water to check on him.

“More changes…” Steve said darkly as Tony held up a hand.

“But it was stable until now.” Sam frowned, scanning Tony’s vitals. “An elevated heartbeat and blood pressure are the only things I’m seeing. Tony, was there anything else that might have triggered it?”

Tony shook his head, then trembled as silvery scales started to appear on his hands and up his arms.

“Tony, the changes might be influenced by distress. Is there a way that you can calm down?”

“Maybe...Hulk has some advice?” Tony choked around the water, partly from talking, partly because he was on the verge of hysterical laughter.

He heard the green guy snort up above on the dry level. “Find your happy place.”

Tony screwed his eyes shut, trying to determine where and what exactly that was. His lounge by the beach? He tried to picture himself there, imaging the feel of the sun warming his cheeks, the smell of salt, and the roar of the ocean--

“You’ve grown more scales, Tony.” The worry in Sam’s voice _so_ did not help.

The lab then? Tony thought about pouring over projects, designing with a mug of coffee in one hand and a tablet in the other, the high stakes of racing against deadlines…

No. It was fun, and he’d always liked the adrenaline rush, but it certainly wasn’t a stress-free environment.

Tony cast about his mind for another space, and came up blank, which was depressing more than anything else. He led such a busy hectic life that he didn’t even have a calm mental space to retreat to.

Tony’s eyes shot open as he felt arms encircling him. He found himself nearly nose to nose with Steve.

Steve smiled guiltily. “It seemed to help with the first transformation.”

“Heart rate’s down to 90. It seems to be working,” Sam chimed in.

“Yeah,” Tony looked into Steve’s blue eyes. “But you can’t stay here all night.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at him, as if Tony had issued a challenge. “Watch me.”

“NO CUDDLING IN COMMON AREAS.” Hulk objected, only to be shushed by Natasha.

Tony was so touched by Steve’s ardent insistence on staying with him that he reached for an old standby: humor. “If you stay in the water that long, you’ll get as wrinkly as a real 90 year old.”

His own skin, perhaps due to the effects of the serum, seemed unaffected. He wondered if the serum flowing in Steve’s veins might do the same for him.

Steve rolled his eyes. “I’ll manage.”

After the others had all gone to bed, Tony shifted in Steve’s arms.

“Did it hurt for you?” he asked, mind running back to their truncated conversation.

“The serum? Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Steve.”

The water rippled as Steve ran a thumb across the back of Tony’s neck. “It was a long time ago. I’m just glad it isn’t for you.”

Yes, but would Steve still love him if he was turned into a blue, scaly Atlantean completely?

Tony decided not to ask and drifted off in Steve’s arms.

#

The next morning, Balen rejoined the Avengers with breakfast. He had a bag of eighty gold coins stamped with a picture of Namor’s cocky face, the King’s gift to help them negotiate the city. Balen also carried a large abalone platter piled high with scallops wrapped in seaweed and spongy oblong things that looked a bit like a purple, spiky kiwi. It was sweet and tender, Balen insisted, but Tony didn’t have the stomach to try it.

Hulk did though. And he ate them so fast that Balen had to ask a guard to send for more. Then they got down to business.

Steve stood at the head of their table while the rest of them sat, still munching on what remained of breakfast. Well, except for Tony. Sam’s breathing apparatus wasn’t designed to let him eat while wearing it.

“I think I speak for us all when I say that we want to cure Tony as soon as possible and get home.” The others nodded in agreement. “With that in mind, I think it would be better if we split into teams to gather information. And, seeing as how we have an expert on that, I think it would be best if we all took our cues from her. Natasha?”

He yielded the head of the table for her.

She started out by questioning Balen. “Like Steve said, we should send someone to the site you were taken. Where would that be?

“Near the royal fishery. I was cutting through the palace grounds to go home.”

“Do many people go out to the fishery? Would there be any witnesses”

Balen shook his head. “Mostly it’s just the keepers, Udu and Odo. But the fish keep them busy.”

“Steve, why don’t you take Clint and start looking there before your meeting with Namor.”

“What! Why don’t I get to come with you?” Clint protested until Natasha glared at him. He gulped and slid a little lower in his seat, lips zipped shut. “Nevermind.”

“Next, we should talk to the counselors, see if they have a motive.”

“Why would they have a motive?” Balen asked.

“The King’s hunch,” Steve explained.

“So what do we know?” Natasha continued. “Can we narrow it down? One is openly hostile toward humans, Gellis, and the other, Rakaa, just wants us gone.”

“Perhaps Gellis fears what may be learned about his chicanery, and hence wishes to turn Tony out without further inspection,” Thor offered.

“Or maybe,” said Clint, “Rakaa wants to cure him and get rid of us as fast as possible so that she can sweep everything under the rug.”

“Or maybe they both just hate humans,” the Hulk grunted.

Natasha cocked her head to one side, then said, “Thor, Hulk, why don’t you talk to Gellis. None of them like humans, but he’s the harder nut here. Maybe you can appeal to him for some information on Meta-Human level.”

“It shall be done, my lady.”

“Sam--”

Sam looked up, mid-bite into one of the seaweed wraps, and then back down at his hand-held scanner. The device had practically become attached to his arm ever since Tony’s exposure. Now he was running comparison of Tony’s blood from the first episode and comparing it to a sample he’d taken last night.

“I was wondering if I could stay here and keep running Tony’s samples. I think I’ve found a cluster of foreign proteins in the new sample, and I’m cross-referencing them with the blood samples that Balen gave me.”

“Okay,” Natasha agreed. “Stay here and keep him company. If whoever helped kidnap him knows he’s returned, they might come back again.”

Then she turned to Tony. “Which leaves you and me. We’re going to try appealing to Rakaa.”

Tony held up his pad of paper, _Sounds like fun._

Man, he really missed effortless speech. Sarcasm lost a lot in written form.


	2. Chapter 2

Hulk’s mouth twisted in annoyance as he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the shimmering facade of the building. He and Thor had donned their diving suits, and he hated the way that the rubberized material pulled against his skin.

The building that they stood in front of had been inlaid with all sorts of white and iridescent shells in a curving pattern that resembled a fish’s scales. Above the curved spires of the door there was a sign in Atlantean writing the he couldn’t read.

Though his comm Hulk asked, “You’re sure this is the right place, Goldilocks?”

“I am certain of it.” Thor said, pointing at the statue of Neptune in the square across the street. “The street is just at the page boy described it.”

_ It’s Atlantis _ . Even in his own thoughts, Hulk’s voice was a grumble. For all he knew there were dozens of statues of Neptune littered around the underwater city.

“Let’s get this over with.”

Inside, Hulk and Thor ascended a large staircase and found themselves in another of the strange pockets of air. Hulk promptly undid the helmet of his diving suit, glad for a chance to escape it, and immediately humid, perfumed air hit him.

Hulk wrinkled his nose. “Is this what I think it is?”

As if in answer, two Atlanteans walked past, wrapped in towels that looked like they had been made with a substance as light and fluffy as seafoam.

Why would the counselor be at a stupid spa?

“Let’s look for him later,” Hulk suggested.

But Thor had already strolled up to the counter and pulled his bag of gold coins from his hip, ignoring Hulk.

So Hulk stomped peevishly after him. “Didn’t you hear what Hulk said?”

Too late. Thor turned and held out a little shell bracelet that was much too small for his green wrist.

“Have you never been to a spa?” The Thunderer asked. “By Odin’s beard, you will enjoy it! Let us start our search with the clay room.”

“Hulk does not go to spas!” he said petulantly.

“Today he shall, in order to help friend Tony.”

“Don’t wanna.”

Thor leaned in close. “The entry fee to this place is costly. It will shame us both if we leave here empty handed.

Hulk glowered, then snatched the shell bracelet. “Fine. But you owe me, Goldilocks.”

At least the towel things would be more comfy than his diving suit.

#

Clint and Steve found their way down to the lower levels of the castle with only half a dozen wrong turns. Clint was still trailing wet footprints from the door he’d accidentally taken that lead to a deep shaft of water--like an elevator, only without the mechanical bits.

“How do they keep track of it all?” Clint asked, exasperated. He was very much looking forward to heading back to the surface.

“I think they probably don’t mind the difference as much as we do,” Steve replied over the comm, diplomatic as ever. They had both doned their diving suits because they weren’t sure what to expect. A fishery probably meant open water, though.

As it turned out, it was a mix of both.

The castle had a long glass air tunnel that lead out to the periphery of the palace, beneath a veritable aquarium. The Atlanteans seemed to love their glass ceilings so. Then again, it did provide for quite the show. Clint gaped up at one of the biggest fish he’d ever seen. It was the size of a bus.

“Amazing, are they not?” Clint’s amazement swiftly soured into annoyance at Namor’s haughty voice. “None bigger exist.”

“Blue whales are still bigger.”

“They’re very impressive,” Steve assured Namor, trying to offset Clint’s quip. He glanced sidelong at Clint as if to say,  _ be nice, we need him on our side. _

Namor’s smile was genuine, Clint was sure of this. But it was too sharp, too pointed, as if Namor was here to take something. He seemed to like Steve complimenting his fish, though. So if that’s what Namor wanted, Clint would try.

Half-heartedly.

“I could--uh--watch them do that thing with their mouths all day.”

Clint tried to find some other compliment--he really wasn’t used to having to look for one for fish though--but Namor seemed intent on ignoring him.

“Steve Rogers. I hadn’t thought to find your here.”

_ Liar. _

“Perhaps you would like to have that meeting I requested of you now?” Namor touched Steve on the arm and let his fingers trace upwards towards Steve’s chest.

Oh.  _ That’s  _ what Namor wanted.

_ Creep. _

“I uh--” Steve stammered. “Uh.”

“You’ve only seen a facet of Atlantis’s grandeur from the castle. I wish to take you out in a chariot to show you the whole gem.”

“Uh--”

“I insist.”

“When do  _ we  _ leave?” Clint asked. Pointedly. Normally he’d picture Steve as the chaperone sort. This situation, however, was anything but normal.

Namor’s lips thinned and the gills at his neck flared ever so slightly as he begrudgingly acknowledged Clint’s presence. “As soon as the chariot is prepared, I think. Alas, it is only large enough for two.”

“But--”

“However, I believe the keepers will be feeding Aurochs here, soon.” He pointed to the Giant Sturgeon above. “If you find them so fascinating, perhaps they’ll let you join in.” He leaned in toward Steve, conspiratorially. “You, I’m sure, have much more pressing things to attend. So let us not delay.”

Steve looked over his shoulder as Namor drew him away with a look of  _ help! _

_ Don’t make Tony kill you,  _ Clint mouthed silently after him.

#

“Make way!”

Tony scrambled and very narrowly avoided being bowled over by two Atlanteans carrying a huge statue of Neptune out the inner door. On their way up, he and Natasha had seen all manner of things being packed into carts: furniture, boxes made of coarse sea fibers, delicate items wrapped in thick bubbles of glass--feathery starfish fans, bottles, paper and inks, and more.

The house where they had learned that Rakaa lived was a mansion on a street of mansions.  Inside they were greeted with a large, open room that, while not as grand as Namor’s palace, certainly looked as though it had been inspired by it.

On a landing above, where two sloped staircases met, Councelor Rakaa was directing traffic. “No, not the Ivory room, yet! That goes in the next cart. The Blue room still needs to be packed, and so does the kitchen! And will someone tell me where in blazes the appraiser is? She and the auctioneer were supposed to be here two hours ago!”  

“Someone looks like they’re leaving in a hurry,” Natasha whispered to Tony.

Tony pulled his pad of paper from a water right pocket.  _ She doesn’t look like she has time to talk. _

Natasha patted Tony on the shoulder. “You just leave that to me,” she said, eyeing the lay of the place, and listening.

_ What are you looking for? _

“Go make sure the cook isn’t making off the silver! I want that appraised first!” Rakaa continued shouting orders, and a young Atlantean scurried down the one of the staircases and through a doorway to obey.

Natasha waved for Tony to follow and her, and together they set off after him.

#

Counselor Gellis was reclining in a sauna, arms stretched wide across the bench, his gills fluttering languidly in the hot steam of the bath. In one corner, grates covered a crevice in the rock that dropped down into a pool of water that bubbled with heat from a hydrothermal vent.

It was nice. Except it smelled like fish.

Hulk dropped himself onto the bench next to the Councilor, who made a very undignified squawking sound. It died out into a squeak when he saw who had come to pay him a visit.

“How did you two find your way in here?” He asked, affronted by their presence.

“We paid, the same as you, I would imagine,” Thor replied, lowering himself with more dignity on the other side of the fat counselor.

The Atlantean’s silver eyes narrowed in Thor’s direction. “Rabble do not usually frequent this sort of place.”

Thor gave a hearty laugh. “Rabble? Take a care, sir. You speak to Thor Odinson, the Thunder God, and the Incredible Hulk, the strongest there is.”

“Am I to be impressed by that?”

“I told you,” Hulk muttered. “Puny fish man is too stupid to tell the difference.”

“Now wait just a moment--” Gellis puffed up like a toad.

“Aye,” Thor was grave. “I suppose you will have your dues. Five hundred gold coins from the vaults of Asgard, as promised.”

“Five hundred gold coins!” the councilor’s eyes got big. “I could buy this place for that much gold.”

“He’s terrible at betting,” Hulk told the counselor, in mock aside. “But he’s always good for the money.”

Thor sighed dramatically, putting one hand on the Gellis’ shoulder. “I am only sorry that I was wrong about this one.”

“Wait, wait!” Gellis pawed at Thor. “No, stay, please.”

Thor and Hulk exchanged smug looks.

“So you like this place enough to consider buying it,” Thor began.

“Not me,” Gellis said morosely. “Salaa. She has been accustomed to an extravagant life, you see, and she would come here everyday if she could. She was recently widowed, and I fear I will be unable to woo her if I cannot keep her in the fine things she loves.”

“Ah, a women.” Thor clapped a hand to his chest. “One of the sweet mysteries of life. Tell us more.”

Hulk groaned.

Gellis slumped. “I do not think there is much to tell. A councilship is prestigious, but I don’t have time same pockets as someone who inherited. I’ve had to take on more apprentices.”

“They pay you to study?” Thor asked.

“Oh yes. The more lackluster, the higher the pay. Your friend, Balen, inquired not long ago if he could study with me.”

“Oh? You do not sound pleased by this. I thought you wanted more apprentices.”

Gellis seemed flustered. “Yes, but too many bad apprentices, and one begins to look like a bad teacher. And your friend. Forgive my bluntness, he has never been the sharpest student. I asked him for a ridiculously high fee. I thought he’d give up, but he was bound and determined.”

“Truly,” Thor leaned in. “How did this fare for you?”

Gellis shrugged. “After he disappeared, I didn’t think any more of it. Now that he’s back, I suppose I will have to see if I can foist one of my other students onto Rakaa. She needs them just as much as I do.”

#

This was new.

There were many places Clint could have landed in life: henchman or supervillain, though stayed with the Crime Circus, he’d probably be in a supermax prison at this point in his life. Alternatively, he could have been a regular old joe, had a quiet life somewhere...he’d always liked the country.

One thing he had never pictured himself doing: brushing the teeth of a giant fish.

Now safely back in the comforts of the fishery’s air chamber, Clint threw the tool--part brush, part rake--in a corner, and began peeling off his diving suit with wet  _ squelching. _

“It was nice to have another set of hands today,” one of the fish keepers, Udu said. “The only reliable helper we’ve had is Balen, but only when he needs a few extra coins.”

The other one, Odo, was emerging up the steps with his own scale-and-slime encrusted brush. “Yes, and Aurochs seems to like you. He’s scared off everyone else.”

Aurochs was the big, bus sized sturgeon, and Steve couldn’t blame anyone from running away from the fish in terror. He pictured the giant fish flopping along the sidewalk after him and wondered what Cap and Tony would say if he asked to keep it.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to stay?” The two keepers asked Clint, hopes high.

It was such a pleasant change from the deep anti-surface bias he’d seen up until now. Not that Clint even considered taking them up on their offer--cleaning fish teeth versus being on the Avengers team. Not really a hard choice.

“I think the counselors would have a cow if a human stayed in Atlantis.”

“What is a cow?” Odo asked.

“Uh…” Clint scratched the back of his head. “Nevermind. Not important. They wouldn’t like me staying.”

“Oh,” Udu’s gills drooped. “I would risk the counselor’s wrath. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to find someone to stay on.”

Clint was not used to sad Atlanteans. Angry and with pointy spears? Yes. Yes, he could deal with that. But with sad, Clint didn’t know where to begin.

“Why? Isn’t a place in the palace staff prestigious?”

Udu shook his head. “ It used to be. But it won’t be any longer--not serving alongside us, anyway. We lost one of Auroch’s newborns.”

“It slipped through the pen netting,” Odo added hastily, earning a nasty glare from Udu.

“I am tired of that lie.”

Odo’s gills flared. “Surely--”

“Surely Clint Barton deserves the truth now. He worked beside us as a friend when no one else would.”

“But--”

“The newborn did not escape. It was stolen under our watch. Fish teeth cannot chew through our pen netting the same way a knife can.”

This didn’t surprise Clint. But the cover up did. “But then why say the baby escaped?”

“Giant Sturgeon look just the same as other fish until they reach maturity, it would be entirely plausible that the fish was out there, swimming the oceans.”

“You can be dismissed for losing a King’s property,” Odo added. “But if they thought we helped someone  _ steal  _ the King’s property, we could be exiled!”

“We’d never see our mother again.”

“A little shame is worth avoiding great shame.”

“But it wasn’t your fault!” Clint protested.

“But it was!”

“We saw yellow monsters cutting the netting,” Odo confessed. “They had a ship that looked like yours.” It all came out in a rush after that, like the opening of a floodgate.

“They also had big guns, and we had nothing.”

“And there weren’t any palace guards nearby, so we hid.”

“So you see, it was our fault.”

Clint still disagreed, but Odo and Udu begged him to keep their secret. Clint reluctantly agreed. He just needed them to tell him one more thing. “Did you happen to see them taking an Atlantean prisoner?”

They looked at one another, an unspoken battle of how much to divulge warring between them.

“No. But we did see an Atlantean with them, attracting a young fish for them. That is why we made up the story of the fish escaping.”

“It was too dark to see who it was.”

“But they were wearing a counselor’s white robes and casting spells.”

The rest of the problem unfolded before Clint’s eyes. “And without a smoking gun, who would the King believe, you or one of his advisors?”

#

“No, no, no!” Councilor Rakaa groaned as two movers bumped into one another. The glass bubbles they were carrying, piled high in their arms, scattered across the floor. Tony expected to hear shattering, but the glass was harder and sturdier than it looked. Instead they rolled across the floor like marbles.

“Perhaps a seat, Councilor?” Natasha asked as Tony proffered a stool.

The old Atlantean looked at the two surface dwellers suspiciously. “I’m quite capable of standing.”

“Maybe a drink then?” Natasha raised a glass, and this time Rakaa’s temptation was too great.

_ Shouting orders like that means she’ll have a dry throat,  _ Natasha had pointed out as they had followed the young Atlantean to the kitchens. “But she’s proud. She’ll refuse the first thing we offer, but accept the second. The trick is making them both desirable.” That’s when her eyes had lit upon the stool.

“Thank you,” Rakaa accepted the water. She gulped down half the glass in one go, then wiped her blue lips on the back of a scaly hand. “You two!” She shouted down to the movers who were scrambling to pick up the orbs they’d dropped. “Have you had midday meal? Go take a break if you can’t focus.”

“But ma’am, you said you wanted everything out by--”

“It’ll be quicker if you aren’t so distracted that you keep running into one another.” She made a shooing motion and the movers, still surprised by their luck, scrambled off.

Rakaa rubbed at her forehead with a thin hand and looked at the stool that Tony was still holding. “I think I will take that seat now.”

“Busy day,” Natasha observed as Tony set the stool down.

Rakaa lowered herself onto it wearily. “And I don’t particularly need you adding to it.”

“Why such a hurry?”

“Because the house has been sold, along with half of my possessions.” Rakaa groused.

“Ma’am?” A skinny, Atlantean girl clutching a list interrupted as she summited the stairs. “I cannot find your Officiant’s robe anywhere. Are you sure it has not been taken to the new house already?”

“I am certain. Make sure the auctioneer hasn’t taken it by mistake. I need it for this afternoon’s ceremony.” Rakaa turned back to Tony and Natasha. “Now tell me plainly, what have you come for?”

“We wondered if you knew the Atlantean who went missing.” Natasha asked.

Rakaa looked at her suspiciously. “I did, in passing.”

“Do you think anyone might have had a reason to help in his disappearance?”

Rakaa grumbled at this question. “He’s certainly foolish enough to wind up in the nets of someone with a grudge. But perhaps it was just a case of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Maybe.”

“That’s all I know on the matter. Now was there something else?” The councelor was a clam, closing up after being tapped. Tony knew Natasha recognized this as well. They’d have to come at it from another angle.

Natasha inclined her head to the councelor. “No, thank you for your help.”

On their way out, they ran into the girl from earlier. She had pried open several chests and was kneeling in front of one. Clothing was strewn about the hall, and her silver eyes and nose were puffy and red. As she dug through piles of shimmering fabrics, her gills flared.

“No luck finding the robe?” Natasha asked, picking up a flowing blue piece of cloth and folding it.

“I don’t know where if could be,” the girl moaned. “I’ve looked everywhere. Maybe she just doesn’t remember selling it. She’s been forgetting things lately…”

“Maybe she’s too proud to admit selling it,” Natasha offered.

The girl started at the suggestion. “Why would she lie?”

“She doesn’t seem very happy about giving up any of this.”

“No,” the girl admitted. “But before the debt collectors, she’d never--that is to say, she wouldn’t make me keep looking if she remembered selling it.”

“Pride can do funny things to people.”

“No, she wouldn’t. One of Gellis’ new apprentices--that friend of yours--came around to settle a gambling debt. He wanted robes for his studies, but she didn’t want to part with any of them. They were above his station, she said. No, I’m certain she hasn’t sold it.” The girl got to her feet and pulled another trunk from the stack, waiting for movers to haul it out.

_ Do you really think Rakaa would torment the poor girl like that?”  _ Tony held up his pad of paper for Natasha to see.

Out of earshot, Natasha said, “I think Rakaa has outlived her means and owes someone a lot of money. Maybe she was hoping for a payout that never came.”

_ From AIM? _

“It would fit their MO. Maybe the deal was sweetened by the chance to get rid of a young upstart.”

_ What now? _

“Now, we report back, and see what the others learned.”

#

“So to recap what we’ve found,” Natasha said as the group gathered around the table again that night. Everyone was present, except for Sam, who was on the verge of a breakthrough and had locked himself in his room. “We have two counselors that would both benefit from some extra money. Money that they might have been counting on getting from AIM.”

“Also fish like Clint a lot,” Hulk added, grabbing one of the dried seaweed snacks and chomping down.

Tony briefly considered whether the trouble of removing his breathing apparatus was worth appeasing his grumbling stomach. After the face Hulk pulled, he decided the answer to that question was a resounding  _ no  _ .

Clint scowled, arms crossed. He’d been unusually silent during the regrouping. “At least it was a fish cuddling up to me, and not Namor.”

Steve sighed.

Balen blinked. “I did not picture the King as a cuddler.”

If he had something further to contribute, Steve chose not to comment on it. “So today’s information doesn’t allow us to rule anything out.”

Balen looked uncomfortable. Learning that two of your heroes had equal motive to have you kidnapped would do that, though.

“This may take some time,” Natasha pursed her lips. “I think we should at least consider the possibility that it might be a long-term mission. Steve, maybe you should take a group back to the surface while a few of us remain down here looking for a solution.”

Tony’s heart began to thud heavier in his chest at the thought.  _ No,  _ he tried to will himself to be calm. He’d be all right. He could manage without Steve. The team wouldn’t leave him completely.

Unless they couldn’t find a cure for him, a dark part of his mind whispered.

Tony felt a strange numbness in his legs then, as though they’d fallen asleep. The brief tingling sensation quickly gave way to excruciating pain. He pushed on the table with shaking hands and nearly fainted when he looked down.

His feet weren’t feet anymore. They were spiny, brown fins. And his legs--he’d thought the sticky feeling on his legs had been blood, but maybe a more apt comparison was superglue. The diving suit that he had been wearing strained and the seams finally split at the seat of the pants. The rest of the change took hold rapidly as his legs fused into a tail.

Thor was sitting next to Tony, and he was the first to see. “Odin’s beard!”

This was bad. Very, very bad. His body felt heavy and sluggish and so very dry.

And why did it have to happen here, where they could all see? Without legs to sit properly, Tony slipped off the chair and onto the floor. He squirmed, pulling himself along by the elbows toward the edge of the water suite.

“Is that a tail?” Hulk asked in a rare moment of surprise.

“Tony!?” He hated hearing the worry in Steve’s voice. If he could just get to the water, slip beneath the surface, he wouldn’t have to hear it.

Then one of the bedroom doors opened, and Tony heard Sam, excited. “Guys, I just had a breakthrough. I cross-referenced all the samples, and there’s no marker matches for  _ homo mermanus  _ . I think Tony was exposed to a serum based on…”

Sam caught sight of Tony, moving along the floor with all the grace of a beached whale.

“...a fish,” he finished, lamely.

“Allow me, Tony,” Thor said, picking him up and depositing him in the water.

Perhaps he was an ingrate--it certainly felt nicer to be in the water--but Tony couldn’t help longing for it to be Steve instead. He felt safe with Steve’s arms around him.

Some instinct prodded him to flick his new tail in the water, and he shuddered at the foreign sensation. If the change could affect him on more than just a physiological level, what was next? Would he turn into a fish completely, like some ichthyoid Kafka grotesque?

He gulped as he saw scales spread across his hands.

_ Happy place, happy place, go to your happy place.  _ He chanted to himself as he closed his eyes, hearing it in his head in Hulk’s deep voice.

His focus was interrupted by Clint. “So if Tony’s becoming a fish, who gets promoted to world’s smartest man? Reed Richards?”

“Clint!” For once it was Natasha, not Steve scolding the archer.

“What! Levity is important.”

Tony shut his eyes again and tried to drown them all out.

“Time and a place, man.” Sam sounded disgusted.

“But seriously,” Clint went on undeterred, “how much do you think the black market would pay for genius super-serum fish DNA? Can you imagine how much AIM would kick themselves if they knew what slipped through their fingers?”

For a moment, everything was quiet. And when Steve spoke, Tony realized why. He must have been giving Clint that quiet, disappointed look that could make a stone feel guilty. “AIM is irrelevant. We’re going to get Tony back to normal and then put this all behind us.”

“But--”

“Go to bed Clint.” Steve’s voice had a steel in it. “In fact, you should all get some shut-eye so we can go looking for more leads bright and early.”

And that was the end of the discussion.

#

Tony didn’t sleep well. The water, coupled with the even stranger developments in his body, left him too miserable to do more than doze. Instead of retreating to one of the sunken rooms, he opted to stay in the common area, floating close to the surface as he had the night before when Steve had held him. It gave him a morsel of comfort to hold on to, which was better than nothing.

Tony shifted in the water, rolling onto his back and looked up through the still waters at the darkened ceiling above. He had no trouble adjusting his buoyancy, which probably should have worried him--one more fishy aspect that he’d taken on--but Balen had brought a tea to keep him calm. He said it was a sedative.

Also, possibly a hallucinogenic--effects were varied among Atlanteans. Balen had no idea what sort of effect it had on fish.

Something rippled in his Tony’s vision--a bug skittering across the water maybe? Or perhaps it was the drug.

Then it moved again in the darkness, and something coarse and scratchy was shoved into Tony’s mouth.

He struggled. But where he would have kicked at his assailant before, now he only had a tail. It thrashed helplessly against something big and solid. Hands came up, clapping his gills, and it stunned him as much as a knee between the legs would have.

Then he felt himself being hauled up and out of the water. And that wasn't good. He’d start suffocating again, helpless as a fish dangling on a hook.

Something thin and light hit him then, and in the darkness Tony felt himself falling, crashing back into the water on top of his assailant. Momentarily freed, he pulled the course fabric that had been shoved in his mouth out and quested out with his fingers, finding that he was surrounded by nylon netting.

He bobbed up to the surface as his assailant’s scaly hands shoved him away, searching for the edge of the net. They didn’t succeed, however. Both of the them froze as the lights came on, and Tony found himself floating in the pool, looking at Balen.

“What are you doing?” He asked in a voice hoarse with disuse, utterly shocked.

Next to the lights, Clint leaned against the wall, a smug grin plastered on his face. “He was going to sell you out to the highest bidder.”

“What?” Tony goggled at the Atlantean. He was downright hurt. They’d saved him, and this was how he repaid them. “Why?”

The other Avengers, having been woken by the commotion, began spilling out into the common area.

Clint basked in the attention. “He’d needed the money. Apprentice fees are expensive, aren’t they?”

“What?” Balen flailed beside Tony in the net. “No. You’ve got it wrong.”

“I really don’t think so. Gellis was demanding exorbitant fees, but you would have done anything to become a magician like Merlin. You told us it was your dream. So you looked for any way to make it possible. You pitched in around the fishery for some extra money, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but that hardly--”

“You needed robes for your apprenticeship, and you tried to get them cheap from Rakaa.”

Galen sunk down in the water.

“But cutting corners and doing errands wasn’t doing the trick. AIM’s original plan wasn’t to kidnap you, was it? They were going to pay you for one of Namor’s prized sturgeon. There’s no way to tell them apart from common sturgeon when they’re that young. How else would you have known the fish they kidnapped along with you was valuable?”

“Lies!”

“I bet if we look through your room, we’ll find the trunk of Rakaa’s missing robes,” Clint said.

At this, Balen gave up the ghost. “I needed the money! No one would take me without it, and I never thought there’d be any harm,” he wailed.

Steve clapped Clint on the back. “Good work. We should go tell Namor.”

Clint grinned mischievously. “What, you don’t want to tell him yourself?”

Steve’s lips thinned. “You know what? I think it’s about time for you to start that fish search and rescue mission.”

#

Tony turned his hand over, goggling at the lack of fins between his fingers. It had only been a few days, but a few days of having his body change drastically had felt like five hundred. He could walk again, having ditched the tail. But best of all, he could breathe air like a good human being. The only evidence that he had ever been slowly turning into a fish were a few stubborn patches of scales on his arms. Balen had assisted Sam in formulating the counter-serum, under the advisement of Gellis, and they all assured Tony that the patches would disappear in the next few weeks.

“If not, you are welcome to return.” Namor said. He had called all of the Avengers, Udu and Odo, and Balen to his throne room after Tony’s treatment was deemed a success. Then he stared pointedly at Steve, “I encourage it, even if you do not require further aid.”

Odd. But maybe Namor had wanted to make it clear that all the Avengers were invited?

Udu and Odo received a pardon for their deceit, along with a severe warning to never let it happen again.

Initially, Namor wanted to send Balen back to the surface with the Avengers, saying exile was kind given what he had done. If he wanted to collude with the surfacers, then he could do so for the rest of his life.

While Tony certainly had little love for the Atlantean after what he had tried to do, it was hard to miss the tremble that went through him. Tony couldn’t help recalling the poignant fear that had gripped him personally at the thought of being left alone in a foreign land.

“He was helpful in creating the cure,” Tony pointed out.

“He’s young,” Steve added. “If nothing he did had irreparable damage...”

“My fish is still missing,” Namor pointed out.

“Actually, while you all were working on Tony, Hulk and I went back up to the surface and brought the rest of AIM’s experiments down for treatment too.” Clint waltzed in, a dozen Atlanteans pushing and pulling a large tank. Inside, a fish the size of a cow floated. Clint stuck his hand down in the water, patting it on the head like a dog, and it bumped playfully at his hand. “We found this one rapidly outgrowing its tank even though it wasn’t hooked up to any of their weird serums.”

“Plooka!” Odo ran over and pressed his face to the glass. The fish tried to like his face through the tank with a huge, bulbous tongue.

“I wish you’d stay,” Udu said sadly to Clint. “You have such a way with them. ”

Clint raised his hands, “No can do.”

“If they need help, maybe there’s a way for Balen to make amends to the King here…” Tony suggested.

“It  _ would  _ be fitting,” Namor conceded.

Clint grinned. “Balen, buddy, I hope you like brushing fish teeth.”

#

“Haven’t you all had enough of the ocean?” Tony asked, feet firmly on the sandy beach. He’d stripped down to swimming trunks and was standing side by side with Steve, their fingers intertwined. He had a snorkeling mask in the other hand. No flippers though. He’d had enough of fins for one week.

“No way! This is awesome!” Clint whooped as Aurochs towed him further out into the waves on his surfboard. It was the only way he was able to keep up with Udu and Odo, who had finally been given a long awaited vacation now that there was help around the fishery. “Eat my dust, Cap!”

“Are you just going to let him tease you like that?”

“Yes,” Steve squeezed Tony’s hand.

“I don’t need a babysitter, Steve.”

“What, you don’t want to go for a romantic walk on the beach?”

Tony glanced down the beach where Thor was burying the Hulk in sand. It looked more like he was making a small hill. “I don’t know if romantic would be the right word for it.” He sighed and looked back at the surf.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Tony.”

“I know. But I  _ do  _ want to.” He fit the mask over his face. It should have been easy, after recent events, to wade out into the water. But minds are tricky things. Tony got up to his waist in the surf before digging his heels in, feeling the waves erode the sand between his toes, pulling at him insistently, as if willing him to take Namor up on the offer to return.

Strange to go from unwanted visitor to welcome houseguest in so short a time. Namor had been downright warm. At least to Steve.

Farther removed from the stresses of the transformation and cure, a horrible realization washed over Tony. It occurred to him that he needed to worry about someone other than himself being carried off by the ocean.

He looked back at Steve, who had only ventured out ankle deep. “So do you think you’ll ever take Namor up on the offer to go back?”

“No.” It was said quickly, possibly too quickly, and Tony couldn’t help the suspicious look.

Steve seemed to read him like a book. “Let’s just say we both have a reason to  _ love  _ dry land.”

Tony laughed. That was his Steve, all right.

“Do you still want to join Nat and Sam, or do you want to head back?”

Tony steeled himself and made up his mind. “No, let’s go. Race you there?”

“Maybe if I tie one arm behind my back,” Steve snorted.

“Hey, your suggestion, not mine!” Tony laughed, and dove into the waves.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [RBB 2017: Fishy Art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10946559) by [DragonK](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonK/pseuds/DragonK)




End file.
